Before going into this blindly, we might consider learning from the experience of other families who hold similar reunions. My last Whitney, Lucretia-7 (William-6, Thomas-5, William-4, William-3, Joshua-2, John) just happened to have married a WORDEN. That family's association has been holding biennial reunions for the last couple of decades, usually in the Northeast. The 2000 was in Rhode Island, the 1998 in Kingston, Ont. I haven't made one yet, but did get the brochures for the last one. They're pretty big affairs. (And there are many more Whitneys than Wordens!) The AUSTIN association also had a big bash in Madison, Wisc. last summer, which I learned about while researching an Austin ancestor, in the genealogical library in Madison, the day after. (Ouch.) If any of you have been to such gatherings, maybe you can tell us what works and what doesn't, and perhaps connect us with some of the coordinators. Worcester, Mass. is pronounced (with slight accent variations) just like Worcester, England, whence it got its name, and Worcester, New York, to which it gave its name. The founders of Wooster, Ohio, evidently wanted to play it safe. As far as "warsh" in the "Midwest", those parts of the Midwest settled by New England stock, such as the Great Lakes and upper Plains, have nary a trace of that pronunciation. Further south, like along the Ohio, it was settled by folks from the hinterlands of Philly, Baltimore and, well, Warshin'ton, D.C., and that kind of mushmouf vowel survives. Folks in Washington state, however, do not take kindly to hearing the "R" in the name. Careful, too, when comparing Worcester's pronunciation to "whist". That "H" isn't there for decoration-- it's still pronounced throughout most of the English-speaking world, at least by careful speakers. David Hackett Fischer, in his comparison of regional folkways "Albion's Seed", says that New Englanders were notable in usually losing the aspiration, or "H"-sound, in the common Wh-words, like what, where, which, whether, whither, white... and Whitney. (Schools in Michigan-- a state settled by New Yorkers of New England ancestry-- once made it a point to teach their pupils to pronounce "wh-" carefully. They were trying hard to rid southern migrant kids of their accents, and perhaps thought they should clean up their own act first.) New England was settled mostly from the Danelaw, and it might be more than coincidence that modern Danish cognates of our wh-words, like hvad, hvor, hvilke, and hvid, also feature an unpronounced "H". Whitney, i.e. "white island", would be "Hvidø" in Danish, though I don't think anyone has that as a name. (Perhaps the common surname "Vidø" sometimes has that meaning.) The "-ey" in Whitney would have come from the Scandinavian "ø", and graces British islands from Guernsey and Jersey to the Orkneys. Cheers, Ron Kyser